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The Music in It

Saturday, July 30, 2016

This week, we’re revisiting prompt #38 from five years ago, January
8, 2011. This prompt can be fun and lends itself to humor.

There’s an old joke about a man who walks out of a theater
after seeing Hamlet and says, “I
don’t know why everybody thinks Hamlet is such a well-written play, it’s
full of clichés.” Of course, phrases from Hamlet such as “in my heart of hearts,” “in my mind's eye” and “there’s
the rub” weren’t clichés when Shakespeare wrote them. They’ve become clichés because they’ve been quoted
so extensively.

Webster’s defines cliché as “a trite expression or
idea,” and trite is defined as
“hackneyed or boring from much use; not fresh or original.” In everyday speech,
clichés become a kind of verbal shorthand. Clichés, however, require little thought
and rarely evoke thought or emotion when they appear in poetry. Readers don't come to poetry looking for
what they already know or have heard before. They want fresh content,
distinctive perspectives, acute angles – freshness and originality.

Clichés are the worry stones of language: they began angled and sharp
but have been rubbed smooth by repeated handling. They are generic, not
specific, and poetry requires specifics. In poetry, some topics (i.e. love
poems) invite clichés, and clichés often masquerade as similes (“dark as
night,” “tears like rain,” “like a bat out of hell,” pale as a ghost, “fast as
lightning”). They may also refer to ideas: “a fluffy kitten,” “a pounding
heart, “ “sweaty palms.” The caveat when writing is to avoid clichés “like the
plague.”

Saturday, July 23, 2016

This
week’s summer rerun comes from Prompt #167. The challenge is for you to write a 10-line poem (not a line less or more) using a prescribed format.
For starters, the “rules” are specific, so try to follow them closely for your
first draft.

The “Rules”

1. Don’t use any terminal punctuation,
but begin each line with a capital letter.

Saturday, July 16, 2016

This week, I've gone all the way back to June 27, 2010 and Prompt #11. (You'll notice ow the prompt format has changed over the years). Memoir poems are perennial favorites with many options for new work.

For this prompt, try writing a
memoir poem about an experience that haunts you. This is not to suggest a bad
experience but, rather, a memory that continues to inform the present.

Memoir poems are narrative
because they tell stories. However, we often see memoir "poems" that
"narrate" in what is essentially prose (with a couple of good images,
a few similes or metaphors, and stanzaic arrangements). Most of these poems
don't succeed because they never reach beyond the poet’s impulse to “tell.” The
poem has to be more than the story – it has to be about what happened because of the story.

Watch out for abstractions and
generalizations that equal sentimentality – there's a big difference between
image and abstraction. A memoir poem needs a strong emotional center that
doesn’t smother meaning with sentiment or read like a diary entry.

A poem should contain an element
of mystery or surprise – first to the poet and then to the reader or listener.
A lot of the poems that are read and published today are so cluttered with
superfluous detail (and adjectives) that there are no mysteries or surprises,
and the poems become claustrophobic experiences (I call it TMW – too many
words). Write short for this one as a discipline against writing too much.
Leave a few blanks for the reader to fill in. In other words, tell, but don't
"tell it all." Your memoir poem should lead readers to something more
than the memory.

In this poem Ashbery remembers a
room, a person, a relationship. He incorporates a few precise details, but not
many – he leaves much to the reader and still achieves a startling sense of
loss and remembrance.

Other great examples (and these,
too, are short poems) are William Stafford's "Once in the 40s" and
Gerald Stern's "The Dancing."

Saturday, July 9, 2016

This week’s rerun dates to January 11, 2011 and the subject of flies (seems appropriate for summertime). Flies in poetry may not be common, but I'm sure you're
familiar with Emily Dickinson's famous poem "I Heard a Fly Buzz."

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died
- (591)By
Emily Dickinson

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died –

The Stillness in the Room

Was like the Stillness in the Air –

Between the Heaves of Storm –

The Eyes around - had wrung them dry –

And Breaths were gathering firm

For that last Onset – when the King

Be witnessed – in the Room –

I willed my Keepsakes – Signed away

What portion of me be

Assignable – and then it was

There interposed a Fly –

With Blue - uncertain – stumbling Buzz –

Between the light – and me –

And then the Windows failed – and then

I could not see to see –

This week we're going to work with a "fly idea," but our treatment
will be different from Emily D's. We've all heard the expression "fly on
the wall." The meaning of the phrase suggests the ability to observe a
situation without being seen or heard.

This isn't a new prompt idea, but it's one with lots of possibilities,
and the challenge this week is to take yourself – in the form of a fly – into
an unusual or emotionally charged place to tell what you see and hear. The idea
is to become virtually invisible but nonetheless present.

1. You may
"become" the fly and speak from the fly's point of view
(persona/personification).

2. You may go back
in time to observe yourself in a particular situation from your past.

3. You may eavesdrop
on a conversation you were never intended to hear.

4. You may be
anywhere, at any time, observing people and listening to what they say.

5. Your tone may be
serious, humorous, or ironic.

To begin, imagine yourself as a fly on a wall. Where are you? What do you
see? Who is there with you? What do you hear? What insights into a situation do
you have from your unseen/unnoticed perspective? What can you (the fly) explain
about human behavior in the situation you observe? Is there a situation in
which you (the fly) can offer insights into your own actions or personality?
What do you learn when you (the fly) observes you (the person)? How may the fly
become a metaphor?

Some places to consider for your wall: a cocktail party, a wedding, a
masked ball, a birthday party from your childhood, the midst of an argument, a
classroom, a divorce court, a funeral parlor, a room in an altered dimension,
an empty house, a cruise ship, a bar or pub, a tent deep in a forest.

Saturday, July 2, 2016

As noted in an earlier post, summer is the time for reruns here on the blog. I've selected a number of old prompts that I hope you'll find interesting and useful. Even if you've used these prompts before, revisiting them just might generate some new ideas for new poems.

Here we go!

Prompt #213 – Tell It to the Birds

I’ve
always loved birds (they appear frequently
in my poems), and I raised small exotic birds formany years. Although I
don't have any exotics living in the house with me now, I feed the
backyard
birds, especially during the cold months, and I always look forward to
seeing
them—from the nondescript sparrows to the brilliant cardinals. Summer is, of course, a wonderful time for bird watching.

This week, I’d like you write create a poem in
which you direct your comments (a kind of monologue) to a bird. You may be
serious or humorous, but the idea is to come up with a theme that somehow
relates to or juxtaposes bird life and human life. For example, some possible
themes might include freedom, flight/flying, providing for children, and not
wanting to be caged (literally or figuratively).

Make a list of things that you might say to a
bird—work toward a single theme and stick to that theme.

Write a poem in which you talk to a bird-member
of the species you chose.

An alternative might be to address comments to
more than one bird (that reminds me of the story about St. Francis of Assisi
and how he preached to a flock of birds).

Or, you might want to try a conversation with a
bird in which you and the bird speak to one another (dialogue rather than
monologue).

You may prefer a humorous approach and address a
bird that dropped a little “something” on your shoulder or head, the stork that
delivered your son or daughter, the crow that stole a piece of your jewelry, or
the parrot (parakeet) that learned a few naughty words.

Tips:

Think in terms of no more than a 12-15 lines.

Don’t spend a lot of time in describing the bird—focus
on what you have to say to it.

Depending on which source you consult, you’ll
find that various birds are symbolic of different qualities. Here are a few
general ideas:

WELCOME!

THE MUSIC IN IT

"The Music In It" is a blog for anyone interested in poets and poetry—the craft and the community.

The title comes from Countee Cullen, who wrote: "My poetry, I should think, has become the way of my giving out whatever music is in me."

Look for a new prompt or guest blogger every week or every other week, usually posted on Saturdays, and check the archives for older prompts and posts. Be sure to click on the poetry-related links in the sidebar.

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I’m the author of 24 books (poetry & nonfiction) with poems published in journals worldwide, as well as in books and anthologies from Crown, Tuttle, Shambhala, and McGraw-Hill.
I’ve worked as a guest poet for numerous agencies, have twice been a featured reader in the Dodge Poetry Festival, and my awards include two poetry fellowships from the NJ State Arts Council, the 2012 International Book Award for Poetry, and the Distinguished Alumni Award (Kean University). My book, A LIGHTNESS, A THIRST, OR NOTHING AT ALL, is a 2016 Paterson Prize finalist. In March of 2012, I was appointed Poet Laureate of Fanwood, NJ by the Borough Mayor and Council.
A former professor of creative writing in the College of New Rochelle’s Graduate School, I’m founding director of the Carriage House Poetry Series and poetry editor for Tiferet Journal. I give readings and conduct both agency-sponsored and private poetry workshops.

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ATTENTION HAIKU POETS

If your area of interest is haiku and its related forms, click the image above for a list of journals (published in various countries) that might interest you.

ON THE TIP OF YOUR TONGUE

Ever find yourself in the middle of a poem and unable to find that one perfect word? Here's the link for a site that provides synonyms, antonyms, related words, similar sounding words, and much more. Easy to use!